Milbauer the Only One Who Can Win: French Complained to Mektić They Have No Chance to Apply for Tender

Dragan Mektić, Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, publicly called on the director of the Agency for Identification Documents, Registers and Data Exchange of Bosnia and Herzegovina (IDDEEA), Edim Nesimi, to cancel the public tender announced for the production of documents and travel documents. He will persist in this, because as he claims, the tender was drafted in such a way that only one company can apply for it, in this case the company Milbauer, which is already a participant in a major scandal, writes the news agency Patria.

The contract in question is worth around 25 million KM.

- Let them go to a tender that will create competition of five or ten companies and let the representative be selected through competition in terms of price and quality. Targeted announcement of a tender worth 25 million that only one company can fulfill is, for me, a suspicious business - said Mektić.

Mektić: Create competition of five or ten companies

As Patria learns, there is interest from a large number of companies from Europe for this job, which was also told to Mektić during his stay in France. However, as they said, due to the way the tender was drafted, they simply have no opportunity to apply.

- The French are very interested in performing these jobs, because they have top-notch machines that they are ready to install in Bosnia and Herzegovina, thereby opening new jobs. However, the contentious part of the tender is the provision "within three months." No one is ready at this moment, except Milbauer, to meet that deadline, because everyone needs at least six months. That is why suspicion has been raised that everything is rigged - our source points out.

Why Nesimi is not reacting

It is unclear why director Nesimi is not reacting, because even in response to a parliamentary question from MP Aleksandra Pandurević, he answered in a way that he was "protecting the former management and former director of IDDEEA, Siniša Macan," who was arrested in May 2016 on suspicion of abusing his position and committing illegalities in the process of selecting the company Milbauer for participation in the production of personal documents for citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Nesimi: Tasked with clarifying the situation

Nesimi justified himself by saying that with such an answer he was actually protecting the institution, but the largest part of the work to clarify the entire situation certainly falls on him. The new tender will be cancelled, because the ministers from the Alliance for Changes in the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina will insist on it.

Adil Osmanović, Minister of Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, under whose jurisdiction IDDEEA falls, says he is monitoring the development of the situation and that he has held talks with both Minister Mektić and Director Nesimi.

Osmanović: Monitoring the development of the situation

- It is in everyone's interest to resolve and conclude this situation. Director Nesimi has the full support of the Council of Ministers to clarify the situation. Previously, we had a significant number of failures, from a ten-year contract, to negotiations with only one company, then the price of ID cards is also an issue, as well as the obligation of how many of them must be taken annually - says Osmanović.

From the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is working on the "Milbauer" case, there is no more concrete information, which further complicates matters, because without an indictment and a final decision of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the company Milbauer has no obstacles to applying for new tenders.

Audit reports

We remind you that the audit report on the operations of IDDEEA stated that this Agency favored a specific bidder, due to which personal documents in Bosnia and Herzegovina were issued at a far higher price than their actual value. 

According to the audit report, the implementation of the negotiated procedure of IDDEEA with a single bidder, in this case the Banja Luka-based "Milbauer," called into question the transparency and cost-effectiveness of the procedure. 

It was assessed that the procurement of the electronic chip for ID cards at eight convertible marks (almost four euros) is not realistic, given that according to the supplier's invoice they amount to about 1.1 euros. 

The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which considered the audit report, assessed that the arrangement between IDDEEA and "Milbauer" is detrimental to Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

The investigation regarding the procurement of personal documents began in 2014, and it should determine how the Banja Luka-based "Milbauer" got this job, at that time without a single reference, even though negotiations were held with the German consortium "Milbauer." 

The job of producing ID cards and driver's licenses, worth almost 104 million marks, was awarded to the company "Milbauer Roding" from Germany, through a negotiated procedure, without publishing a notice and without the obligation to establish a company in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

In the Banja Luka-based company "Milbauer," as reported by the media, 40 percent of ownership is held by the company "Nites," whose owner is Miodrag Škrbić and several other individuals whom the media have linked to Zlatko Lagumdžija and Milorad Dodik. 

At the time of signing the first contract, the head of the Banja Luka-based Milbauer was Danilo Petković, the son-in-law of the former member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina and high-ranking SNSD official Nebojša Radmanović.